TP-Link Talon AD7200 review: extremely fast 802.11ad-router

TP-Link is the first to release an 802.11ad-router

By Sander AlmekindersTuesday 29 August 2017 04:59

Introduction

Router manufacturers have been looking for ways to make a new product stand out in the last years. With 802.11ad there is a new IEEE-standard that can be added to routers. TP-Link is the first manufacturer to do this. In this review we take a closer look at the Talon AD7200.

Aesthetically the Talon AD7200 is a lot like the Archer C3200 and the Archer C5400. It has the same (in our opinion) good looking square design, with antennae that fall into the device but of course are upright when it is used. As with the C5400 there are no less than eight antennae. The connectors are all at the back: four times lan, one time wan and two times usb 3.0. At the front we see three buttons: a wps-button, a button that allows you to turn the leds on and off and a button to turn wifi on and off. Furthermore there are a whole lot of leds here. Two of these are for the usb-connectors, one to indicate whether or not wps is active, one to show connectivity with the internet, one that indicates the presence of wired connections, a power led and three leds for the wireless connections.

The latter immediately indicates that this is not your average router. Up until now we were used to seeing two radios in routers: 2.4 and 5 GHz. With the Talon AD7200 there is a third one, namely 60 GHz. IEEE called this standard 802.11ad and it is basically the standardization of WiGig which has been available for some time. It was primarily used to, for example, connect wireless monitors to a laptop or docking station. The theoretical bandwidth of 802.11ad is of course enormous. Aside from 800 Mbps at 2.4 GHz and 1750 Mbps at 5 GHz (with MU MIMO), 4600 Mbps at 60 GHz is added now. If you add this all up you find the 7200 that is seen in the name of this router. This makes it basically a tri-band router, only one of the 5GHz-radios is traded for a 60GHz-variant. In order to avoid any more confusion this router is not referred to as a tri-band, but as a multi-band router.

The Talon AD7200 might be equipped with a new standard, it is not the most expensive TP-Link router. The tri-band Archer C5400 is slightly more expensive. If you consider the fact that the AD7200 – bluntly put – is an Archer C2600 with 802.11ad as extra, 286 pounds / 320 euros is not a small amount in comparison with the average price for the C2600 of 134 pounds / 150 euros.